What vitriol! Didn’t growing up blonde and pretty in middle America make you feel special? Perhaps you’ve been nurtured a little too much.

The greatest indoctrination into extremist, bigoted, and radical viewpoints can be claimed by religion. Not just Islam, but Christianity and Judaism. All the major religions have their extremists, bigots and radicals (look at you), why do you spend so much time on Islam? Here’s the thing, though, religion and its institutions are some of the most charitable as well. Why condemn all of Islam when the majority of Muslims are exactly like the majority of Christians and Jews?

Eh, try smoking some pot. God grew that for you in mind.

Ricky on May 12, 2012 at 11:03 am

Yeah, because we all know and hear about Christians and Jews behaeding and stoning people, right? Go troll someplace else. I for one, enjoy and value Debbie’s reviews. She has saved me so much time and money!

jimmy d on May 12, 2012 at 12:34 pm

Me thinks thou protesteth too much!

I also put a great deal of weight in Debbie’s reviews because all through the years I’ve read her site, she’s sooo right on the money with what she says of her movie reviews. Lockout was fabulous, by the way. LOVED IT! Give me Debbie’s reviews any day over the drivel that comes from pretty much every other “high brow” reviewer out there. Thanks Debbie and keep up the good work for the majority of Americans who agree with your reviews!

Denise on May 12, 2012 at 1:21 pm

Ricky, get stuffed. You’re a retard and fool and we don’t suffer those sorts here. You think you’re so clever but you’re like 15 years behind us. Get lost.

Tim Burton is GREAT at his art and sets but his movies (which I love for their art) are always lacking in the story-telling. It’s disappointing. I am too young (much to my chagrin) to remember “Dark Shadows” but that show would have been right up my dark alley! I kinda wanna see it but will prolly wait ’til it comes on DVD. In reading about “Dark Shadows” it has made me wanna buy the NEW total episode set (in a coffin-shaped box-set) but it’s over $500.! Can’t reconcile that!

Skunky on May 12, 2012 at 1:53 pm

Debbie review of Depp’s last borefest,”Rum Diary” included this line:

“The Johnny-Depp-I’m-Cool-In-A-Weird-Offbeat-Way act is old,tired and hackneyed. Time for it to retire”

Same thing could more than be said for Depp’s longtime partner-in-cinematic crime,Tim Burton.

Phineas on May 12, 2012 at 3:25 pm

Phineas, you stole my thunder! Seriously, I was just going to make the very same point. Except, I’d add Depp’s tired attempt to appear off the wall and weird, too.

The only good Burton film is Beetlejuice. I would have included the first, and only the first, Batman, but not after Christopher Nolan blew him out of the water with his Batman reinventions.

Jeff_W on May 12, 2012 at 5:28 pm

I seriously LMAO (I was tempted to say ‘literally’ but I’m sick of the word) at the ‘Damsels in Distress’ review…hilarious…might have been the beer i’m drinking but still, pretty funny..

thanks Debbie for this and the other reviews, you saved me a few $$ in movie tickets, i wanted to watch at least 2/ of the four you reviewed…

Yossi on May 12, 2012 at 5:43 pm

Well, Ricky got a couple things right. She did grow up blonde and pretty in the midwest. He left out brilliant and talented, though.

Dale on May 13, 2012 at 1:47 am

Thanks for the heads-up, Debbie. Probably won’t pay to see any of them. I’d have to drive 50+ miles to find a theater anyway. Can’t stomach (Chris)Topher Grace. Just saw him in “Double” with Al Pacino, and he was horrendous. Carries with him all the tics, mannerisms, and expressions I couldn’t stand in “That 70’s Show.” Looks like Eric with short hair and a suit.

Unless I am confused by history, I don’t think Debbie grew up as a blonde….

Kent on May 13, 2012 at 2:43 pm

I love debbie blonde or not. I am a longtime colleague of Ricky’s. We both subscribe to the school of getting blazed and not giving a shit. As for as the whole religion thing, i have no problem proslytizing with the tip of my pen. The daughters of most these religous nuts love shacking up in my Occupy tent, and getting passed around like a hookah in Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai’s caravan.

Tdog on May 13, 2012 at 5:16 pm

For all their too cool for school amateur rebellion, Ricky and Tdog are just common, everyday cowards who stand for nothing. They are exactly the kind the Islamic fascists love because they know they stand for nothing.

Jeff_W on May 13, 2012 at 8:32 pm

Will someone tell me why “Dark Shadows,” a late ’60s-early ’70s TV show was remade as a feature film? There are classic vampire stories that have never been filmed. Why not film Cyril M. Kornbluth’s “The Mindworm” or Mary Wilkins Freeman’s “Luella Miller?” Some elderly character actress-Maggie Smith, maybe-could have a grand romp playing Lydia Anderson. Then there’s Count Stenbock’s “The Sad Story of a Vampire.” By today’s politically correct standards, that might be a problem. Some might say it was homophobic: the vampire is gay. Coleridge’s long poem Christabel is about a lesbian vampire and might maske a good film. Hallie Kate Eisenberg could play the title character and who could play Geraldine? Anyone out there, familiar with the poem, want to suggest who might play Geraldine? When I first read the poem, more than 30 years ago, I thought of Blanche Baker and Isabel Adjani. Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s “Good Lady Ducayne” is another fine story that has never been filmed.

Miranda Rose Smith on May 14, 2012 at 6:16 am

Miranda, I think the simple answer to your question of why complex, interesting classics like “The Mindworm,” “Luella Miller,” “Cristabel” and the others you mentioned have not been adapted is that Americans don’t really care that much for old things. We’re in love with the new because the new is bright and shiny.

I myself admit I’m a little disappointment that the original Gothic novels by Radcliffe, Lewis and Walpole have never gone to film. That’s where all these horror-supernatural stories began, after all, and there’s nothing weirder, scarier or racier than “The Monk,” not even “Cristabel.”

Personally, I’m grateful that Stuart Gordon came along and made it his life mission to put Lovecraft to film. Maybe there will be someone eventually who will do something comparable with all the important vampire classics.

As I was watching “Dark Shadows” (which I loved) I kept thinking about how glad I was that this film was not another Ann Rice adaptation, since this film was so much lighter and breezier than either “Queen of the Damned” or “Interview With the Vampire.” Maybe that’s the reason the classics you mentioned have been ignored, Miranda; this new film was a campy, kitchy, spoofy comedy, and although “Cristabel” could be written and directed with that angle in mind, it probably would have offended Coleridge (even in his grave) to do so.

Worry01, I have a different take on this film than you do (although I found your thoughtful analysis interesting). Burton chose this topic not because of any thought to what was potentially mainstream, but because he and Depp both loved the original TV soap (as I researched and discovered) and wanted to create an affectionate homage. This is Burton returning to his early roots when he did films like “Attack From Mars” (an homage to fifties sci fi) and “Ed Wood” (an homage to cheap sci fi films–“Plan 9 From Outer Space” in particular).

From my point of view, this film was close to perfect. I’d pretty much given up on Burton after his gratingly progressive “Alice in Wonderland” which wore all its leftist politics on its sleeve, and on Depp also after his “Rum Diary,” an obsequious hagiography of counterculture antihero Hunter S. Thompson. This was far, far better than Burton or Depp’s recent movies (last 20 years). It had a beautifully conservative subtext which mocked hippies, affirmed family business, and perfectly mixed sweetness and traditional values with the grotesque and horrifying–the same blend that made his early films (“Beetlejuice,” “Nightmare Before Christmas,” etc.) so beautifully eccentric and appealing.

Miranda, I think Christina Ricci would be a good fit for Cristabel, and I know she’d have no problem with the nude scenes which would be important in a conscientious adaptation of that poem. As for Geraldine, it would have to be someone malignant and thoroughly evil–how about either the hateful Kate Winslet or Ashley Judd since Jane Fonda and Susan Sarandon are both too old for the role? Michelle Pfeiffer, by the way, was perfect for “Dark Shadows.” She helped set the seventies feeling for the film just as well as the lava lamps and Karen Carpenter background songs.

Burke on May 14, 2012 at 1:22 pm

Or rather, Ricci for Geraldine and Winslet for Cristabel. You knew what I meant, I’m sure.

Burke on May 14, 2012 at 1:30 pm

I also saw the recently released “Bullies,” a depressingly shallow and misguided documentary about bullies. It shows kids with strange, fishlike faces being bullied. It also shows gays being bullied. It was made by liberals and it was for other liberals who want to cluck cluck in indignation about how evil and mean bullies are because they often pick on the liberals’ special mascots who have become public surrogates for women who don’t want to have any of their own children themselves (that would be too icky).

Liberals want to solve the problem of bullying by increased regulations and increasing the number of mandated hours in sensitivity training. That’s their panacea. It worked for Mao and it will work for us. But it doesn’t work. What works is allowing parents to choose schools they prefer. When parents get to choose schools and there are real, substantial differences between schools so that the choice isn’t just a masquerade, good things happen. Parents begin to emotionally and philosophically invest themselves in these schools. They buy in, to use a phrase. Schools also evolve and actually get better through competition and diversity of choice. Teachers even begin to believe in the schools.

As a teacher, I have seen what has happened in public schools. When the environment becomes a flood of bad behavior, a sense of helplessness sets in. There’s even a fear of retaliation when there’s so much of it, and stopping inappropriate behavior often means putting yourself on a limb. We are even more afraid of parents with their lawyers. Eventually, passivity sets in. And what’s the solution for liberals? Why more sensitivity training, of course! The whole cycle they want is similar to what happens when liberals get their paws on the government purse and attempt to solve the problem of poverty in the inner city. Of course, their marvelous solutions backfire and create more problems than were even originally there.

In short, “Bullies” is emotionally manipulative propaganda that ultimately feeds into liberal delusions. Like many other artsy documentaries, it begins with the wrong set of assumptions and ends with the wrong conclusions.

Burke on May 14, 2012 at 5:05 pm

I also saw this weekend the recently released “Darling Companion” (Kevin Kline, Richard Jenkins, Diane Keaton, etc.). This is another film that Debbie didn’t review (not that I’m complaining; she still reviews more than any other critic in the country as far as I can tell).

“Darling Companion” is a film by Lawrence Kasdan who earlier did “The Big Chill” and “Grand Canyon.” His specialty is films where virtually nothing happens except a lot of heartfelt and intimate psychobabble. The climax of this picture came when Kline turned to his wife Keaton and told her very slowly and emotionally, “There’s something I want you to know in case I die…and that is that I’ve always admired the way you are with the kids.” She frowns, takes it in and then finally answers, “I want you to know that I’m going to try to be more patient.” They hug. That was the most exciting part of the film. Really.

It’s important to realize, I think, that these films by Kasdan are not simply laughable examples of weak and unpopular filmmaking. In a larger way, they represent a flaw of those in the Baby Boomer Generation who allowed themselves to become infatuated with the sound of their own voices and so replaced faddy intimacy-babble with concrete adult action. Real people don’t immerse themselves in their voices; they do things. Kasdan has embarrassed himself once again because he shows in this movie that he never outgrew a seventies manner of thinking and speaking that is foolish and infantile.

Burke on May 14, 2012 at 6:29 pm

Brickwood, in answer to your question, “Bullies” is produced by Weinstein who of course is no idiot. There’s a thriving market for films that propagandize to liberals, and liberals appear to be the ones with money these days to go spend on film tickets since government pay keeps going up and up even while the economy goes down and down. So “Bullies” will probably make good money.

The other film I mentioned, “Darling Companion,” is maybe a vanity project like the one you mentioned with Crystal. It’s full of Hollywood stars, but I suspect these stars participated as a favor to director Kasdan who’s been struggling in recent years. The movie is such a pathetically self-indulgent failure it’s almost worth seeing just for laughs.

There are good films out, too, though. “Beautiful Soul” which I also caught this weekend is a heartwarming, pious picture about a gangsta black who turns to Christ. That got cheers from a pretty crowded theater (full of blacks). My favorite film showing now is “Chimp,” a Disney documentary which is absolutely extraordinary. I loved that film! This is very sophisticated primatology that is both endearing and fascinating–showing everything from territorial skirmishes between rival ape bands to cannibalism of other monkeys to scenes with army ants to pretty interesting tool use that’s been passed down culturally by these chimps for 4000 years. I can’t stand schmaltzy animal films like “Dolphin Tale,” but this one was very good.

Burke on May 16, 2012 at 9:55 pm